Berkeley Township

Berkeley Township is a township in Ocean County, New Jersey. In the 1880s, US Army lieutenant Edward Farrow began buying up woodland with the idea of building a retirement community for former Army and US Navy officers, building a railroad station, shops, and even a resort hotel, but only 11 people bought homes in the area, and Farrow went bankrupt. In the 1920s, Benjamin W. Sangor purchased the area with the goal of creating a resort town for wealthy urban vacationers, and it was popular during Prohibition. Many wealthy people came to Berkeley's halls to drink bootlegged alcohol, and Al Capone was a frequent visitor. In 1929, the resort community went bankrupt during the Great Depression. Today, it is a rural and heavily Republican town, and it had a population of 41,689 people in 2016.